As a father, husband, teacher, coach, man, writer, jack Lutheran, late-mid-life-elder, ne'er do well, and espresso addict I find myself tethered to more responsibility, commitment, and distraction than, as a younger man, I thought I would carry. So I write this wonderfully encumbered surprise of a life that I have been given. I see grace and I see atrocity; I respond writing odes to what I love and rants against what I abhor. If I lived in a cave I would paint these on the wall.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Tendril

Every once in a while, when the smoke clears, and a bolt of clarity pierces the fog that is the habit of no way never again, a tendril of hope sprouts from your little aching heart. It defies all odds and pushes up between the cracks in your armor, the reinforced concrete of your decision to stand alone, frozen, free from the pain of love. It creeps forward, toward some unseen light, knowing full well what it is getting into, in spite of your fear. It may be tender, but it is not weak. Given the slightest sliver of courage it will split the walls that keep you from the beloved, will send you tumbling forward into your deepest most secretly held desire. It knows no quit, and persists as long as you continue to draw breath, even in the deepest, most obscure, midnight of no moon.

About Me

Poems and narrative essays function in ways other kinds of writing cannot. They are living things that raise the heart rate while raising questions. Not all delight, but most can kick. I toss these out there into the cyber ethers, the e-oceans, with hope that they are found and heard by someone somewhere.